#22- Go to a Bingo Night

I always joke with people about how I am going to make a great old person. I love crosswords, cats and, of course, BINGO! I remember when I was younger and we would go on vacation to Bethany Beach every summer, one thing that we always did was go to a bingo night.

I haven't been in years and I have always wanted to do a real bingo night. You know what I'm talking about... Elk lodge, an older crowd, players surrounded by their good luck charms and multiple colored dotters. Needless to say, St. Augustine would have one of these around for sure (We are a little bit of a retirement town :)).

As I said in a previous post, my two girlfriends from home were in town and said they would go with me so we started to prepare for our Thursday smokeless bingo night. Now how do you prepare for said bingo night, you might ask... Well I will tell you. We went and bought bingo visors, of course!

We went to a shop on downtown St. George street and purchased some of the most ridiculous visors we could find. Mine had hot air balloons, Martha's had different colored alligators and Hol's had flamingos. (See pic below!)

We had our visors and were ready to go! We drove the the Elk Lodge and walked in. We were late. The guy told us that they had different packages, the lowest starting at $18 per person. We quickly accepted the lowest price and he began to hand us a million and one things. A whole stack of bingo sheets, surprise bingo sheets, our receipts and a schedule of the bingo games. We were juggling all of our papers and he told us that he would let us each pick out a "dotter" for our games.

We each grabbed our traditional colors (me- blue, Holly- pink, Martha- purple) and we walked in. Not only were we the youngest people there, we were also the only ones wearing visors... darn it. We thought we had that nailed so we looked like we knew what we were doing.

We walked in, remember-late, and walked around trying to find a seat. We got a few glares from people daring us to sit in front of them, but finally found a seat where we were able to put our stuff down.

I never knew that bingo could be so confusing. They had different colored sheets with different games that were played different ways. We were beyond confused. Thank God we had these two wonderful ladies next to us who walked us through the process!

Here was our bingo schedule which gives you some idea of how intense these people are about Bingo

Once we made it through a few games we had gotten the hang of it and were dotting our bingo cards away. It was fun to get close, but we never did win :( Each round the winner won $50 except for a select few rounds where you could win $250! Martha did have Bingo but didn't realize it until after someone had already called it... but oh well! We had a full 3 hours of Bingo and an experience we can look forward to again... hopefully next time winning!

I can't wait until it is exceptable for me to go to Bingo every Thursday night and not be judged by my friends ;)

#61- See OAR in concert

This past week has really been an awesome one because two of my best friends in the whole entire world, Holly and Martha, came down to St. Augustine for the week. #61 on my list is one of those pre-planned ones that I know is coming (kind of like the Daytona 500, a set date..) and it just happened to fall on the date where my girlfriends were in town.

Now this story starts a few days before with an email I received from the school saying that they would be giving away OAR tickets and to look out on their Facebook page for a clue on where you could find them.

The next morning I checked on my phone (thank God for smart phones and mobile internet :)) and they said that they would be announcing the hint in the next 15 minutes. I continued to check and right when they posted to clue, I threw my backpack into my next class and ran down.

Now I think I had an advantage because the clue was "Find us for free tickets...students use to hang out here with fried cheese and fries. Now you visit for a quick proofread and help with your math. Find us! First person wins tickets". The only people who would know where this is is people who have already graduated or MAYBE the seniors because Molly's Place was an old snack area underneath the breezeway that moved to the Student Center after it was built a few years ago. They then turned the old Molly's space into a tutor center. None of the under classmen would've known about it previously being Molly's.

So I ran down and as I am walking up a girl asked me if I was looking for someone and the girl walking behind me and I both responded, "OAR!". Now I happened to be a few steps in front of the other girl so I was proclaimed the winner of two OAR pit tickets for Saturday's show!

Here is a picture they took right after I won the tickets:

I was so excited to win the tickets because now I had the two extra to get Holly and Martha in (I already had purchased a ticket for myself with my two other friends, Julie and Mairs).

So then we get to the day of the show. Holly, Martha and I went to a cute little bar just over the Bridge of Lions called Ring of Fire. It's a small bikerish bar decorated with cowboyish garb, cornhole and peanuts on the floor... a self-proclaimed Honky Tonk. We had a few drinks, played a little corn hole (and Photo Hunt! We have the new high score there if anyone stops by) and then headed off to the concert.

We ended up trading my two friends the pit tickets for their seat tickets so Martha, Holly and I could sit together, so we went in and found out seats that were pretty far up. We continued to walk past our seats to try and find some closer. We did and started to sing along and dance to the wonderful OAR!

I turned to both of the girls and asked them if they wanted to try and sneak into the pit... being my best friends and always up for an adventure, they agreed and we walked down to the edge of the pit. To get into the pit you need a bracelet, so I contacted my girlfriend that I had given the pit tickets to and she came to the edge and slipped off her bracelet and passed it off to me. I went in, after showing the bracelet, and then slipped it off and handed it to Martha. Martha repeated the process and passed it off to Holly, who got in, but not before the lady could tell us they knew what we were doing and we were going to get kicked out if they found us.

We knew we had to get lost in the crowd so we pushed our way up... to the front row! We had an amazing view AND it was an awesome concert. OAR is amazing live and I highly suggest going to their concert, even if you aren't a fan, it's a great atmosphere! Overall, awesome night :)

Here are some pictures from the night:

#10- Sing Karaoke Alone

Karaoke is something that everyone should do once in their lives. It's one of those things where you need to step up and just do it. I have the worst voice in the world... well maybe not the worst, but it's defiantly nothing special.

I will never forget when I was 12 years old and I was at the beach with my friend Bianca. Backstreet Boys were pretty big back then (and in my heart, they always will be. BSB fo' life!) and we put in the CD to jam out.

I'm not 100% sure, but I am almost positive that we were singing "I Want It That Way" when she looked over at me and told me my singing sucked. I was so taken a back because up until this moment of my life, I thought I was a mini Britney Spears. Apparently not.

After said event, I was extremely self conscience of my voice, although it never slowed me down from singing at the top of my lungs. What really had changed was I now knew I wasn't a rare talent.

Karaoke has always been something that scared me. I have tried it a few times, always in groups. One with my mom singing "I Will Survive" (typical Karaoke song), in groups of girlfriends singing such songs as "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and the like, but I had never sang alone. This was my chance.

We have a great bar here in St. Augustine called Scarlett O'Hara's that has karaoke every Monday night. Once again, after a few drinks, my friend Allison convinced me that this was the night. The night to cross number 10 off my list. She convinced me even further with offering to buy me a shot.

Shot consumed, I walked up and signed up to sing my song. I knew exactly which one I was doing. I nervously sat down while the four people in front of me sang their songs one by one, some alright, some horrible and one girl that actually had a pretty good voice. I was freaking out.

"And now we have Kerry singing Coolio's "Gangster's Paradise"!" Everyone slowly clapped as I walked forward. I think they were confused of my song choice. Here is a video of the song for those who have not heard it...
Gangster's Paradise-Coolio

The music started and I began to rap, the crowd looked shocked at first and then started to get into it. I wasn't so nervous anymore and decided to throw a few gangster moves in there as I rapped. I threw up my elbows and really broke it now. I had a blast! When the song was over, the crowd went crazy... I don't know if it was because I actually did a good job or because this little white girl in a dress got up there and rapped. Either way, I took it.

** My dad was very disappointed that I did not get a video of this actual event, so I will be going back this upcoming Monday and will hopefully have a video to present to you later next week! I'm sure it will be just as good ;)

#3- Eat a whole UFO at the Taco Shop on St. George Street

For those of you who don't know what a UFO is, there is a Taco Shop on St. George Street here in St. Augustine, Florida (http://www.burritoworks.com/). On their menu they have the most amazing burrito you will ever eat. Ever. Now I do love myself a UFO every now and then but I eat one half of this beast and I am completely full.

#3 on my list was to eat one of these bad boys... the whole thing. After an eventful night of drinking on the town, now seemed like the perfect time to undertake this venture.

We got to the Taco Shop and I ordered my Chicken UFO with the works and spicy baja sauce. I got to talking to the guy who took my order (Canyon.. cool name right?) and I asked him if I could make it myself. Now please remember that I have had a few drinks and it is about 1 in the morning... Canyon told me no and that he could get fired.

A few minutes later he told me to get behind the counter and he would let me make my UFO.. Here's a picture of Canyon and I in our gloves getting ready to make THE UFO!